While the world is trembling in the face of the COVID-19 disease that keeps spreading among all continents, this doesn’t seem to affect the plans of the International Space Station. No disrespect for the operators of the space station since their persistence truly is an act of courage.
Therefore, two Russian cosmonauts and one NASA astronaut launched to the International Space Station on Thursday morning at 4:05 a.m. ET. Their names are Anatoli Ivanishin, Ivan Vagner, and Chris Cassidy, and the lift-off took place from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
People attending the launch were prepared for the pandemic
Some of the astronauts’ relatives and media members couldn’t arrive at the launch site because of the travel restrictions. Those who were involved in the launch had been wearing masks and keeping several feet from each other.
Christopher John “Chris” Cassidy was born January 4, 1970, in Salem, Massachusetts. He is a NASA astronaut and also the United States Navy SEAL. Cassidy became captain in the U.S. Navy. He was also the Chief of the Astronaut Office from NASA for almost two years: during July 2015 and June 2017.
Anatoli Alekseyevich Ivanishin (Russian: Анатолий Алексеевич Иванишин) was born on 15 January 1969 in Irkutsk. He is a Russian cosmonaut who is familiar with the International Space Station. His first flight to space was exactly to the space station on board the Soyuz TMA-22 spacecraft. He was an Expedition 29 / Expedition 30 crew member, launching in November 2011 and coming back in April 2012. For Expedition 49, Ivanishin was also the Commander of the International Space Station.
Ivan Viktorovitch Vagner is the youngest astronaut, being only 34 years old. He is a Russian engineer and cosmonaut. He graduated from the Baltic State Technical University twelve years ago in 2008, and after that he started working as an engineer for RKK Energia.
Space exploration is always an exciting thing to do, and it’s nice to see highly motivated people in this field even in hard times, when a lot of activity on Earth is either postponed or canceled.
